


hair dye

by pumpkinpaperweight



Series: filling in canon [2]
Category: The School for Good and Evil - Soman Chainani
Genre: Gen, i wanted to have tedros and callis interact properly, set at the very beginning of TLEA when Agatha and Tedros are stuck in graves hill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:07:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22975876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pumpkinpaperweight/pseuds/pumpkinpaperweight
Summary: “It’s not that surprising. You look exactly like your father did at your age.” she muttered-- then realised her mistake.Tedros bolted up.“You knew my father?”(Yes.)“No.”--callis, somewhat against her will, has a chat with her daughter's prince. pre-tlea, canon-compliant.
Relationships: Agatha/Tedros (The School for Good and Evil)
Series: filling in canon [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1651123
Comments: 12
Kudos: 118





	hair dye

“Do you dye your hair?” asked Tedros from the bathroom door, wiping his wet hands on his breeches.

Callis didn’t turn around from the stove.

“What makes you think that?” she said. She felt it was calm enough. 

But it seemed Tedros had spent long enough with her daughter to recognise the suppressed irritation in Callis’s voice. 

From the corner of her eye, she saw Tedros frown.

“Black marks on the sink.”

“Isn’t it just mould?” asked Callis airily.

Tedros pulled a face.

“Er, no. It’s definitely dye.”

“And how do you know it’s not Agatha’s?”

Tedros snorted.

“Agatha? Knowing how to do anything remotely cosmetic? Come on.”

_ What happened to him being an idiot, Agatha?  _ Callis thought furiously. It seemed he was certainly astute enough to notice  _ this.  _ She was glad that Agatha was asleep, because if she heard this--

She needed to convince him otherwise. Quickly.

“Going grey.” she said brusquely. 

“I can’t believe you care about going grey.” said Tedros dismissively. “You raised  _ Agatha _ . And anyway, you’ve got brown roots.”

Callis reminded herself she was not permitted to throttle the boy.

“Sorry, do you spend a lot of time staring at me?”

Tedros didn’t look particularly abashed.

“I was just trying to see if there were  _ any _ differences between you and Agatha. You’re spookily similar.” 

“Many people have said so.”

“You’d have thought she doesn’t have a father at all.” mused Tedros.

“He’s six feet under, she doesn’t.” snapped Callis.

“You know what I mean.”

Callis glared at his reflection in the cracked, dirty kitchen mirror. 

“It’s not _that_ surprising. You look exactly like your father did at your age.” she muttered-- then realised her mistake.

Tedros bolted up.

“You knew my father?”

_ Yes. _

“No.” Callis shot him a hopefully convincing look of disdain, and pointed a crooked finger at the teetering bookshelf. “In there.”

She went back to her lizard soup, hoping she’d distracted him-- 

“I’ve never read this. They don’t really print them at home.” Tedros mumbled, pulling the gold-bound book from the very bottom of the pile. He caught sight of the blackened edge and frowned. “Hey, what happened to it?”

“Left too close to the fire.” lied Callis. She didn’t think he’d appreciate the knowledge that Agatha had come close to burning it after she’d returned from Good.

“You actually read these?”

“ _ I  _ don’t. But there’s a reason students from Woods Beyond are called Readers, you know.”

“...Right.” 

Tedros was quiet for a few merciful minutes. Callis could hear him flipping pages. 

Then;

“We look the  _ same _ .”

“I think perhaps you’re taller.” said Callis. In truth, Tedros was far taller and broader than Arthur had ever been when Callis had known him, and she actually thought he looked more like Guinevere around the mouth and eyes. But she didn’t think he’d want to hear that--

“The last page has been ripped out.” said Tedros, disappointed. 

Callis grimaced.

The page showing the blonde baby had not survived Agatha’s post-Good purge. 

“I think someone owned it before us.” she said. “Must have been damaged.”

“...oh.”

Callis didn’t get the impression he was convinced. He’d probably guessed what-- or who-- was on it. 

For a minute, Tedros stared at the book. Then, he said;

“I don’t know how much Agatha told you about the School--”

Callis slammed a lid on her soup and turned around to face him for the first time.

“If you’re going to attempt to break the news she’s Good to me, don’t bother. She arrived back in a bloodied ball gown and refused to tell me anything. It wasn’t hard to work out. Then she panicked at Stefan’s wedding, disappeared again, and came back with  _ you.” _

Tedros winced. 

“Right. So, when she was back the first time, she didn’t tell you--”

“About  _ you?  _ No, she didn’t. I inferred some things.”

Tedros looked back at the ripped page.

“Oh,” he said. He looked rather disappointed.

Callis bit back a comment about the attack on Gavaldon and that maybe, just  _ maybe _ , there was a  _ reason _ for his non-mention. 

“I imagine she didn’t tell you anything about me, though--”

“She did.” said Tedros, instantly. “She told me some stuff, after the first time she tried to convince me she was part of a coven and I… er, believed her. But then she did tell me about you.”

Slightly surprised, Callis went back to cutting bread. 

“And, what, you told her about your fine fancy family?”

Tedros picked at his nails.

“No. Not as if there’s anything new to tell.” he said, slightly bitterly. 

“I suppose.” agreed Callis. She could tell Tedros was staring at her. 

For a while, he was silent. Then he said;

“At school, they have this hedge garden--”

“Merlin’s Menagerie.” supplied Callis thoughtlessly, then winced internally. Tedros looked oddly at her.

“How’d you--”

“Sophie talked about Good, even if Agatha didn’t.” lied Callis. “Hedges of your father, yes?”

“Yeah. Except, when the Schools turned to Boy and Girl, it turned into statues of my mother, and… the last one…”

He looked back down at the ripped page.

Callis anticipated something horrible. She’d taught at the same time as Evelyn Sader. She knew what the woman was capable of. 

“It was my Christening.” he looked as if he was about to try and bite his nails, but stopped himself. “Except she was… my mother, I mean… she was drowning me. In the font.” 

Callis looked over her shoulder at him. She got the distinct impression this was the first time he’d told anyone about it.

He looked very little, hunched at the table in Agatha’s usual seat, mangling the fabric of one of her cloaks in his fist. Agatha had introduced him as a Prince, so he can’t have been coronated yet… he had to still be fifteen, like Agatha.

“I’m sorry you had to see that.” she said, honestly. 

Tedros nodded tiredly, rubbing at his stubbly cheeks. Callis, who had caught him doing that several times when he was still injured, realised it meant he was trying not to cry, and turned diplomatically back to the soup.

If it was at all the right time, she’d tell him what she knew. But it wasn’t. She couldn’t. She couldn’t tell either of them. 

She gazed unseeingly at her own warped reflection. Agatha was her double, and she’d keep it that way. Provided neither Tedros nor Agatha died prematurely, in looking at Callis, Tedros was looking into the future, at the face of his Queen.

_ Well _ , Callis rubbed at a smudge of soot on her face.  _ Hopefully a Queen would be a little better groomed.  _

“Was it you, who wanted to take her to the ball?” she asked, abruptly.

Tedros hiccuped, startled.

“Huh?”

“I asked after the gown, and she muttered something about the ball. You need a date to go. Was it you?”

“I-- yeah. Yeah, I asked her at the Circus. Callis, how do you know so much about the--”

Callis turned around and pointed a finger at him. 

“I’m about to tell you something. You tell Agatha and I’ll skin you, understand?”

Tedros stared, bewildered.

“...yes.”

She wasn’t telling him the truth. If anything, she was throwing him off in admitting it.

“I dye my hair.” she said. “I dye my hair so that I look more like my daughter.”

“You want to look more like Agatha?” repeated Tedros blankly. Callis scoffed. 

“I know it seems unfathomable to you preening Evers, but it’s true. I knew how the villagers would treat her, and I’d be damned if I let her be shunned alone. Strength in numbers. That’s an Ever thing, right?”

“Yeah.” said Tedros slowly. “I… yeah.”

He looked back at the stained sink. Callis prayed he didn’t pry further. He was an Everboy, there was no way he had experience with either Beautification  _ or  _ Uglification--

“That’s a very admirable thing to do.” he said thoughtfully. Callis snorted. She knew he wouldn’t understand. 

“It’s not a big burden. I still look like her in every other way. I just don’t want her to know--”

“No.” said Tedros. “Making sure she didn’t face it alone.”

Oh.

Perhaps he did understand.

“Well,” said Callis. “That’s what parents are for.”

She cast a glance out of the window, at the elegant grave just visible on the hill, and scowled. 

“Yeah.” Tedros said tiredly. “Wish mine had that view.”

Callis pursed her lips.

“I imagine you’ll find help somewhere.” she said. “Even if it’s somewhere unexpected.”

Reaper leapt up onto the table, hissed at Tedros (Tedros bared his teeth back) and jumped onto the counter to see what Callis was doing.

“Convenient timing.” Callis told him quietly. He yawned and did a very good impression of not understanding. 

“But for now,” said Callis, turning back to Tedros, “It seems you’ll just have to rely on each other.”

She shot Tedros a pointed look. It was practically impossible not to notice their scrapping, or the icy silence she often came home to.

Tedros went pink.

“Yeah.” he muttered. “I-- yeah, you’re right.”

“I know.” said Callis. “I often am.”

Tedros smiled, a little.

“You sounded like Agatha, when you said that.”

“I think you mean  _ she  _ sounds like me. Wake her up, won’t you? It’s nearly dinner.”

Tedros looked apprehensive.

“She doesn’t like being woken up.”

“Why do you think I’m asking  _ you  _ to do it?”

“She’ll not be mad at you! She’s always mad at me!”

“Aren’t you intending to marry her, at some point?” demanded Callis. “Get over it!”

Tedros went red and stood up abruptly. Callis turned back to the stove, smirking. 

Perhaps she could tolerate him, after all. 

**Author's Note:**

> Tedros, clinging to Callis's leg and crying: PLEASE BE MY MOTHER TOO  
> anyway I had a random weird impulse whilst writing burn to write this instead so I did. it's another one of those ones where I've wanted to fill in something that didn't happen in canon; this time, I wanted to flesh out Tedros and Callis's relationship, seeing as they... uh, didn't have one. hope you enjoyed! i might keep adding these from time to time, I have quite a lot of ideas for them!


End file.
